How did you start your quilting business

[SewSew]

I guess what I am most interested in is what spurred you on to take the plunge into longarm quilting as a business. When do you know you are good enough to do it for others? DH is not totally convinced that longarm quilting is a good home business to start up and I guess I wonder also.

I have taken a class using the HQsixteen and am planning on taking another class so that I can rent out use on this machine at a LQS.

I would love to purchase a mid/longarm machine but I know that I could not afford it unless I did it for business use. I am just curious as to how others got started with their business ventures.

Any hints, tips or advice would be greatly appreciated. Ann

[qltsbme]

The biggest tip I have is to check out how many longarmers are in your area. I hd NO idea how many there were here until after I got my machine. I believe our area is saturated.

My husband wanted me to stay home and be with the kids and homeschool and generally take care of things. I had mentioned the long arm in passing. I was working for Viking at the time. My boss had decided to go out of the business and close all of her stores. I was working on closing the second to the last store (I was the grim reaper and went from store to store to handle the closing - now doesn't THAT seem like a good thing on a resume) when he called me out of the blue and said that he had figured out the financing and was going to remodel our attached garage into my studio and I was going to start my business. I was floored. Actually, I don't think I really believed it was going to happen but it did.

Life got in the way and I didn't quilt as much as I wanted/needed to. I ended up getting a job here at the credit union last April because we were just not making it financially (still aren't, actually). I am still quilting for folks and have enough business to keep busy. I would love to just be quilting but it's just not going to happen - at least not while we still have kids at home. Once volleyball is over (in just a couple of weeks) I am going to focus more on the quilting and try to get more business.

Nancy

[QIAD-Linda]

Hi qltsbme,
Do you have kids in volleyball? My son and DIL are both volleyball coaches and both of my granddaughters love playing.

[qltsbme]

My fourteen year old daughter is on the varsity volleyball team. My older girls all played volleyball. My oldest only played in high school but the next two both played in college as well as high school. They all (except for the oldest one) love it. My oldest was more a cheerleader type than a play a sport and get sweaty type.

[gardenquilter]

check your pm

[quiltsintexas]

SewSew,
My circustances are different, but the first thing I did was read up on starting a business, including the basics like rules/regulations in your town, operating capital, keeping books, advertising, all the boring stuff. There are books out there (amazon, ebay, etc.) on starting a longarm quilting business. Linda Taylor has a good one. Look at longarm/midarm quilting sites to see what they are doing and how much they're charging. I plan to retire in 2 years, so when Handiquilter offered a great deal and financing on a package deal, I took it. Now I can learn and polish my quilting BEFORE I start my business, but in the meantime I will take as many orders that I know I can handle while still working to build up my business.

Ada on the Texas coast

[quiltingranny]

I started out by checking into the legals and city/stare ordinances, I am the only only one withing severatowns so compitition is not a factor, for me but it can be as to when you know you are ready that is a tuffy..I think there will always be situations that make you ask what did I invest in in this for, but if you can look at a quilt and say to yourself wow that looks good the you are ready. just my opinion QG